Articles on Finance

Between the Delloite 2016 Global FX Survey and the FIREapps Q4 2015 Currency Impact Report, it appears that treasurers and CFO's have resigned themselves to accepting emerging markets currency risks. A deeper dive into the surveys reveals that the FX exposures to hedge (if known because its too expensive to track) can't necessarily be trusted (can't verify hedging numbers), and the high volatility price of EM currency pairs makes it difficult. My advice to those with responsibility for hedging currency exposures is to budget for currency exposure reporting software for 2017, put in place a hedging policy and procedure document that is board approved, and ensure that zero cost collars are utilized to hedge EM exposures.

Two years ago, you finally closed the big merger deal you spent what seems like years working on. Perhaps, your business is tied to commercial real estate development, construction, or building materials. Just when you were ready to start that big ramp up, the bottom fell out.

It is an unfortunate fact of business that from time to time one of your customers will not pay for goods or services you provide. It is a frustrating and sometimes helpless feeling that you have knowing that even though you provided a valuable product or service, for reasons beyond your control you are simply not paid. How do you collect your money? What follows are some techniques that will help you effectively collect your receivables.

I receive phone calls throughout the year from attorneys who have taken on their first FINRA case and they frequently are unaware how the FINRA Dispute Resolution process differs from other venues. I thought it would be helpful to provide a quick overview for new participants and a refresher for those more experienced securities attorneys on how the FINRA Arbitration and Mediation process works.

In FINRA-related cases many attorneys see discovery requests objected to by opposing counsel. Typically, opposing counsel objects to discovery requests citing that items requested are either "overly broad, vague, or ambiguous", or "impermissible per FINRA's Code of Arbitration Procedure". However, despite opposing counsel's reasoning, many objections to discovery requests are irrelevant and do not hold up in regard to FINRA's Code of Arbitration Procedure. Attorneys should not be intimidated or discouraged by these objections, but rather should understand that FINRA's guidelines concerning arbitration allow for most applicable and reasonably obtainable discovery information to be delivered.

As billionaire Warren Buffet once noted, "Price is what you pay. Value is what you get." Interested buyers, investors and bankers looking at new initiatives with companies often share similar objectives in 'kicking the tires' to be sure a target company has properly documented its business activities. On the other side of the transaction, the subject company's Founder, Board of Directors, CEO, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Accounting and/or other departments can find themselves overwhelmed by the volume of documentation requests. Third parties can test the bounds of both courtesy and reasonableness before committing to and funding a new transaction.

The emergence of structured finance products over twenty-five years ago enabled major commercial banks and investment houses to develop higher volumes of real estate, credit cards, automobiles and other asset-based loans in new and often more profitable ways. Historically, lenders normally generated these types of loans as portfolio loans, where the bank kept and monitored these loans on its own balance sheet and at its own risk. But beginning in the late 1980's, banks began to investigate taking an intermediary or conduit role for certain types of loan portfolios. When generating loans which met the advance underwriting criteria of large investors, banks and loan originators recognized they could simultaneously generate large fees and also promptly move these 'tailored' loan portfolios off the bank's books, by pre-packaging them for investor third parties.

"When it happens to you, you'll know it's true." Old Proverb A financial expert witness experienced in the due diligence process and in complex business negotiations can help unlock the valuation issues at the core of many business disputes. Merger and acquisition-related lawsuits can become an exercise in piecing together both the timing and materiality of various communications by representatives from both parties. Analysis of the specific due diligence activities undertaken and the data exchanged can yield key answers. With a full understanding of the processes and communications developed in due diligence and underwriting, business disputes can be more readily resolved.

With the Federal Reserve's wide-ranging efforts to address the ongoing Credit Crisis through unprecedented money-creation activities, we are now likely witnessing the final phases of the U.S. Dollar's 64-year reign as the primary global reserve currency. Few Americans understand the implications of this dramatically unfolding global sea-change.

The global monetary system which was laid out by the Allied nations at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944 is nearing its end, and daily we move closer to the threshold of a financial new world order. The United States, having created the most powerful economic system yet devised by man, and having earned global 'reserve currency status' for the US Dollar through America's unequalled military and economic power as the victor of two World Wars, is now nearing the unthinkable loss of the global financial dominance of the Dollar. Following the residential real estate 'Bubble' of 2002-2006, the sub-prime Credit Crisis of 2007, and the broader global financial meltdown which has followed, the U.S. has experienced dramatically declining levels of core lending & general economic activity.